Crotalaria podocarpa
Click on each image to see a larger version and details of the record
Image 1
Habit
05 Mar 2009
Image 2
Flower
21 Mar 2008
Image 3
Flowers and seed pods
21 Mar 2008
Image 4
Seed pod
21 Mar 2008
Image 5
Leaves
21 Mar 2008
Image 6
Flower
23 Mar 2008
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Full name: | Crotalaria podocarpa DC. |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | - |
| English common name(s): | - |
| Synonym(s): | Crotalaria arvensis Klotzsch Crotalaria belckii Schinz Crotalaria damarensis Engl. var. maraisiana Torre Crotalaria flexuosa Baker Crotalaria fulgida Baker Crotalaria hirsutissima Schinz Crotalaria mutabilis Schinz Crotalaria pilifera Klotzsch Crotalaria podocarpa DC. subsp. flexuosa (Baker) Baker f. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Erect, herbaceous, divaricately-branched, thinly clothed with long, patent, soft hairs; stipules leaf-like, one-sided, falcate, ribbed, ciliate; leaflets oblong or oblongo-lanceolate, acute, ciliate on margin and midrib; racemes opposite the leaves, 2–6–8-flowered; flowers subdistant; calyx-lobes lanceolate-acuminate, much longer than the tube; legume stipitate, many-seeded, glabrous. 1–2 feet high, much-branched; the branches pale. Pubescence long, loose, yellowish. Petioles 1–1.5 inch long. Leaflets (on our specimens) 1–1.5 inch long, the medial longest, lanceolate, 2.5–3 lines wide. Stipules 6–7 lines long, dimidiate, 1.5 line wide. A native also of Tropical and North Africa. It varies with obovate leaflets and in amount of pubescence. The calyx-lobes in our specimen are glabrous. Carina long-rostrate. (from JSTOR website / Flora Capensis) Stems herbaceous, erect, 1–2 feet high, with copious erecto-patent branches thinly clothed with long yellowish silky hairs. Stipules lanceolate-falcate, 0.25– 0.5 in. long, persistent. Petioles 1–1.5 in. long, silky, erecto-patent. Leaves with three sessile oblanceolate leaflets, central one 1–1.5 in. long, 0.25– 0.375 in. broad, mucronate, both sides thinly silky. Flowers only 2–3 together in long-stalked clusters in the axils of the leaves. Bracts minute, setaceous. Calyx silky, 0.375 in. deep, teeth lanceolate-acuminate, reaching three-quarters of the way down. Corolla yellow, twice as long as the calyx; standard 4 lines broad, not striated, glabrous; keel with a distinct beak 0.25 in. long. Pod with a stalk half as long as the calyx, 0.75–1 in. long, 0.5 in. thick, glabrous, 12–18 seeded. (from JSTOR website / Flora of Tropical Africa) Annual with an erect stem to 70 cm tall and long spreading or decumbent lower branches, with generally spreading hears. Leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets variable, mostly 1.5–5(8) x 0.3–1.6(2.5) cm, linear or oblong-lanceolate to obovate-elliptic, usually thinly hairy at least beneath; petioles mostly shorter than the leaflets; stipules 5–17 x 3–7 mm, shortly stalked, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate-falcate, acuminate, usually truncate or rounded at the base, very unequal-sided. Racemes (3)6–14 cm long, long-pedunculate, laxly 2–5(8)-flowered; bracts up to 3.5 mm long, filiform and caducous, or lacking; pedicels 2.5–6 mm long. Calyx 7–9 mm long, hairy or subglabrous; lobes triangular-subulate, longer than the tube, ultimately reflexed. Standard ovate, clear yellow, sometimes slightly reddish tinged, glabrous outside; wings a little shorter than the keel; keel 1.2–1.7 cm long, angled in the lower half, with a straight beak, lanate towards the upper edge (particularly on the beak). Pod 2–3 x 0.9–1.4 cm, cylindrical, often rather broadly so and somewhat inflated when young, abruptly contracted to the slender 2.5–5 mm long stipe, glabrous, 6–12-seeded. Seeds 4.5–6 mm in diameter, subcircular-reniform, compressed with a broad raised rim, irregularly tuberculate, orange or pale yellow. (from JSTOR website / Flora Zambesiaca) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie |
| Content last updated: | 22 Nov 2011 |
